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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29265327">and if there's a reason</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slumber/pseuds/Slumber'>Slumber</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Denial of Feelings, Developing Relationship, Getting Together, M/M, Minor: Tajima/OCs, Minor: Tajima/Riou, Post-Canon, Slow Build</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 13:34:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,826</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29265327</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slumber/pseuds/Slumber</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tajima almost confesses to Hanai in the last year of high school. </p><p>It takes them a few years to recover.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hanai Azusa/Tajima Yuuichirou</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Chocolate Box - Round 6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>and if there's a reason</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawberries/gifts">hawberries</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Your prompt where Hanai and Tajima struggle to get together for years, and how they both cope with it (Tajima: yes. Hanai: lol) really resonated with me, so I wanted to give it a shot! I hope you enjoy this treat!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tajima tries to confess to Hanai in the summer of their third year and, because it’s Tajima and because it’s Hanai, it is an unmitigated disaster.</p><p>‘Confess’ may be the wrong word to use. And the equipment shed—musty with humidity and heat, reeking of the stink of twenty teenage boys who’d sweated through their clothes and their socks and had all of that marinating in the tiny space—is probably the wrong place to have tried.</p><p>They’d stayed after practice to run some sequences together—the team had more players now, enough to have two competing closers and a reserve pitcher, but Hanai had never quite gotten over losing them that game because he’d had to step in for Ren, so the practice is… Tajima isn’t sure. Atonement, maybe? Punishment? Hanai liked to simmer in his own guilt like that. Which is fine, because otherwise he’d simmer alone, and this way at least Tajima can help. (These days, Hanai even seems to be okay with letting him.)</p><p>He helps put their equipment away, organizing the bats and the mitts and the balls where they found them so their managers don’t get too mad at them in the morning. But he turns around too quickly as Hanai’s reaching over his shoulder to put something on a shelf and in the next moment, Tajima finds himself blinking up at wide brown eyes, so close he could count the flecks of gold caught in the afternoon light.</p><p>Maybe he tips his head up. Maybe he closes his eyes. Sure the metallic edge of the shelf digs a cold and hard line across his back, and if he breathes he might gag from the foul stench of the trapped air, but like, the moment feels ripe for this—for whatever’s been slowly brewing between them to come to a head. </p><p>Only, Hanai doesn’t think so. </p><p>Because instead of meeting him halfway, instead of closing the gap, Hanai falls back. </p><p>“What do you think you’re doing,” he says, like he doesn’t secretly read Shinooka’s shoujou manga and know exactly what Tajima was going for just then.</p><p>“You don’t mean it,” he says before Tajima can tell him what he thinks he’s doing, and that stings, a little, and then he adds, “you don’t know what you want,” and then it stings a lot. </p><p>And then Hanai runs out.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>So, okay. </p><p>Maybe Tajima misread what was going on. Maybe he should have waited until they were walking home, and the air was fresher, and the sunset made it more romantic, and the way their arms swung freely made it easier for Tajima to reach out, fingers brushing, and close his hands over Hanai’s. </p><p>Maybe those, he fucked up. Fine.</p><p>But he kind of resents the thought that what he fucked up is not knowing what he wants.</p><p>Tajima is <em>shaped</em> by the things he wants. He’s a simple guy, and it’s not like what he wants are complicated abstracts. It’s just good food, his grandfather’s vegetables, getting to jerk it at least once a day without interruption to stay regular. Being told the important things at the moment they’re happening, and not the next day after everyone’s returned home and seen him and gone <em>oh, fuck, that’s what we were forgetting</em>.</p><p>Hanai, too, falls in that list. Because he’s good-looking and tall and so easy to mess with, but he never takes it against anyone even when they’re all having fun at his expense. If someone in the team had to go to the hospital, Hanai would remember to tell everyone. Even Tajima. Then he’d make sure they all had something to eat, and a ride home, and if they lived too far, a place to stay for the night. That’s why he’s in that list.</p><p>So Tajima doesn’t really know what Hanai means when he says he doesn’t know what he wants. And Tajima wants to, like, sit him down and make sure they’re on the same page there, but suddenly Hanai’s not interested in practicing pitching with him anymore and he’s avoiding his gaze at practice and making all these excuses to leave right away and Tajima gets it. </p><p>It’s Hanai who needs the space. </p><p>So that’s what Tajima gives him.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Nakazawa Riou invites Tajima out on a Saturday in the summer of their first year of college, and that’s how Tajima gets his first boyfriend.</p><p>They’re teammates now, recruited to the same university—along with Hanai, who even agreed to split rent with Tajima on a two-bedroom near campus—and they’ve been friendly since high school anyway. Tajima barely thinks anything of Riou’s invitation, not when he is the only one who shows up to the arcade (he’d thought it was a team thing?), not when Riou asks him if he wants to split an order when they find an ice cream shop after (one banana split is barely enough for him, no thank you!), and not even when Riou takes his hand and leads him down a quiet area of the park when they walk off the calories (Tajima has a tendency to get distracted easy, it's good to be sure they don’t accidentally lose each other).</p><p>Riou’s lips are sticky and taste of strawberry when he leans over to smack a kiss on Tajima. His palms are kind of clammy, and he pulls away before the kiss can get anywhere past surprising and meander over into interesting. </p><p>“Was this a date,” Tajima asks, and Riou turns a funny shade of red all over—to the tips of his ears, to his neck, down his chest past the loose collar of the shirt he’s wearing. </p><p>“My friends said to do it this way,” Riou says finally, crossing his arms as though to add, <em>what of it.</em> There’s a flicker of hesitation shadowing his face. (It’s a pretty face.) “So…?”</p><p>“So?” Tajima echoes. He’s still trying to catch up to what happened, recategorize everything in the past couple of hours from platonic over to romantic. “What is happening?”</p><p>“I’m asking you out.” And then, again with the flustered follow-up to the bluster: “Is it—is that okay?”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Dating Riou is pretty nice. Tajima likes it, for something he hadn’t thought of until five seconds after Riou stuck his tongue down Tajima’s throat. </p><p>He likes the heft of Riou’s palm in his hand, even though they get clammy a lot, and he likes talking ball with him, and it’s even great that Riou isn’t shy about telling Tajima how he likes his dick sucked. His face is pretty to look at even though he’s annoyingly tall, and he apologizes when he’s wrong even though it doesn’t happen until after he’s had a good long sulk first. </p><p>But it’s not bad. It’s okay.</p><p>Dating Riou is pretty okay. </p><p>“Didn’t your last class end early today?” Hanai asks, looking up at him from where he’s got his books spread out on the kitchen table, bandana around his head and reading glasses perched on his nose. “I’ll clear out if you need to eat dinner—”</p><p>“S’okay, I already ate with Riou,” Tajima says, patting Hanai on the shoulder as he passes him by on his way to the fridge. “Work hard, Captain.”</p><p>“I haven’t been captain since high school,” Hanai mutters. “What are you digging in there for? I thought you already ate?”</p><p>Tajima pulls out a pudding cup and grins at Hanai. “Dessert! Want some?”</p><p>“No thanks.”</p><p>“Then, how about tea?”</p><p>“Uh—” Hanai looks at his empty cup for a moment. “Yes. Please. Thank you.” </p><p>Tajima refills the kettle with water and sets it to boil, grabbing Hanai’s cup and pulling out his own cup from the cupboards and fresh tea bags from their pantry.</p><p>“Where’d you guys go?” Hanai asks after Tajima hands him his tea. His eyes are on his textbook. Almost stubbornly so. “For dinner.”</p><p>“We just got burgers,” Tajima says. “You know that new spot that opened down the road? It was pretty good! They had a double stack this high!”</p><p>“Yeah? Sounds nice.”</p><p>Tajima wants to ask him what he wants to ask. He thinks there’s a question waiting there, in the stilted conversation around where Tajima went with Riou for dinner and why he did. Why that’s been happening lately. What Tajima thinks of it. Of Riou.</p><p>But Hanai doesn’t even look up, and his lips start moving over the words in his textbook, brow furrowing in concentration, so eventually Tajima takes his empty cup to the sink to wash and heads back to his room.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“I don’t think this is working,” Tajima says, which is the worst cliché in the book of breakup lines but also, unfortunately, the closest to what he thinks the problem is. </p><p>It’s the winter of their first year of college, and Tajima finds out that while there’s a lot of things he likes doing with Riou—even a lot of them things someone usually does with a boyfriend—it doesn’t make being his boyfriend okay.</p><p>“I don’t understand,” Hanai says, which is the same thing Riou had said earlier, when Tajima broke up with him. He’d really messed that up, hadn’t he? “You were dating him?”</p><p>Oh. Right. </p><p>“He asked me out, and I didn’t see why I couldn’t try to get to know him too,” Tajima mumbles, poking at the half-empty can of beer Hanai had found him drinking when he walked into their apartment. He’d been the one to do the breaking up bit, but it still hurts. It wasn’t like he’d gone in hoping it wouldn’t work out. </p><p>“Okay,” Hanai says. He sits down next to Tajima and not-so-surreptitiously counts the number of empty cans versus not-empty cans on the coffee table. He’s got his captain hat on, which Tajima kind of hates and appreciates at the same time. But at least it makes him say: “So what happened?” in a much kinder tone than Tajima expected.</p><p>Tajima lays his head on Hanai’s shoulder. He wipes at his eyes furiously. “Nothing happened,” he says. “That was kind of the problem. I just—he’s a great guy. He is. But in the end I just didn’t feel the same way about him, you know? And that wouldn’t be fair to him. Even though this isn’t fair to him, either.”</p><p>“I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” Hanai says, and it sounds like he means it. </p><p>“He won’t want to see me for a while,” Tajima sniffles. “I liked hanging out with him, but it’s going to suck, so I get it. I just—”</p><p>“It’s okay,” Hanai says, and he doesn’t say a whole lot, but he lets Tajima talk, and work through it, and tell him his favorite things about Riou that he probably won’t be able to see anymore, which is what he deserves, because he’s broken his heart. </p><p>But it sucks anyway.</p><p>At some point Hanai cracks open a can himself, and tells Tajima not to drink another one when he’s caught between sniffling and drinking and ends up with the hiccups instead. Hanai thrusts a glass of water at him, makes him swallow that down. There’s a fleeting weight on the top of his head, and then he’s getting pulled up to his feet. </p><p>The warmth of his blanket is tucked up to his chin, his bed so soft and comfortable beneath him that he curls in on himself instinctively when he lays down on it. </p><p>“M’sorry,” he thinks he remembers mumbling.</p><p>He doesn’t remember how Hanai responds.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Tajima is right: Riou doesn’t want to talk to him for a while after all. Of course, they’re still playing for the same team, which makes it a little awkward, but at least Riou seems determined not to let it ruin practice.</p><p>Still definitely, absolutely sucks, though.</p><p>“Hanai,” Tajima says when field drills become nearly unbearable, tugging at the back of his shirt. “Can we go to the batting cages? Pitch for me.”</p><p>“Why don’t you use the machines?” Hanai frowns, his gaze flickering between Tajima and Riou. </p><p>Oh, so Tajima’s being obvious.</p><p>He wrinkles his nose. “They’re too predictable. Besides, you’ve been working on your throw, right? I want to see how hard you can make them now.”</p><p>It still takes a little bit of wheedling, but Hanai eventually follows Tajima to the cages, getting in position to throw. “Any special requests?”</p><p>Tajima lines himself up, bat over his shoulder, knees bent, and locks gazes with Hanai. “You look a little tense,” he says. “Loosen up your shoulders a little, and gimme your best shot.”</p><p>“I am not—!” Hanai grits out, tensing even <em>more</em> if that were possible. His gaze narrows, but he swings and it’s a lethal speed, the ball flying right at Tajima, who jerks back just in time to avoid the ball by centimeters. “That good enough for you?”</p><p>Tajima swallows. “Okay,” he says, squaring his shoulders and getting back on the plate. So that’s how Hanai’s gonna play this out. “Yeah, why not?”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Are you done being mad at me?” Tajima asks after, yanking the hem of his jersey up to wipe the sweat from his brow and the dirt from his cheeks. He blinks at Hanai, who tears his gaze away from Tajima’s stomach to look him in the eyes. </p><p>“I wasn’t mad at you. You said you wanted to see how strong my throws got.”</p><p>Tajima frowns. “Hm. Okay.” He takes a deliberate step forward.</p><p>Hanai steps back. “Don’t.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Hanai, as far as Tajima can tell, doesn’t hate him. </p><p>Could somebody who hated him have agreed to split an apartment for college, or make them both meals in exchange for Tajima washing the dishes when he found out Tajima would have been perfectly happy to subsist on instant noodles and his grandfather’s bi-weekly delivery of side dishes? </p><p>Hanai, Tajima thinks, may even like him. </p><p>He’s not dumb, and he’s seen what desire looks like on him so he knows when he sees it on Hanai, like when he’s stepping out of the shower in just a towel because he’s forgotten to take his clothes with him again, or when he’s stretching and his shirt rides up on his waist a little. He’s seen Hanai staring at him while he’s caught up in the telling of a story or other, gaze so intent on his freckles like he’s trying to count every last one, or on his lips like he wants to reach out and taste them. </p><p>But Hanai also goes on the defensive if Tajima even so much as asks him what he’s doing, a triggered flight-only response that has him heated and sputtering with overly strong denial.</p><p>Tajima doesn’t know what Hanai’s so afraid of. It’s not like Hanai doesn’t know Tajima’s interested, so maybe, he thinks, it isn’t really about Tajima at all. </p><p>But he won’t tell Tajima what it is—not voluntarily, and definitely not when Tajima asks. </p><p>Tajima can still hit any pitch by the end of a game as long as he’s seen it at least once. But how’s he supposed to respond to a pitcher who doesn’t seem to ever plan to throw?</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>In the fall of their second year in college, Tajima takes an art class on a whim and sits next to a pretty girl who introduces herself as Remi. The class had seemed like an easy way to fill a requirement, and Remi’s an easy girl to talk to. They pair up for a partner project and meet up occasionally outside of class to work on it, and at one point, caught up in the research, not noticing the café closing down until the manager politely kicks them out, Remi asks him if he’d like to continue working at her place.</p><p>“You’re really great,” Tajima tells her, trying to figure out how to say this so he won’t get slapped in the face for it. But even if he does, it would still be better than hurting her at the end, like he did to Riou. “But I’m not really—I don’t think I’m the right person for a relationshi—”</p><p>“Yuu-kun, I’m not proposing,” Remi says, laughing. “We can keep it casual, right?”</p><p>“Oh.” Tajima blinks. He could, couldn’t he. “Yeah—yeah, that’s fine.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“What time did you get in last night?” Hanai asks at practice the next afternoon, the first time Tajima’s seen him all day.</p><p>Tajima scratches at his nose. “I… didn’t,” he admits, fighting the heat creeping up his cheeks. It shouldn’t be embarrassing, and it isn’t, but it feels weird because Hanai knew he’d been working on a project with Remi, and— </p><p>“Right.” </p><p>Tajima stops himself from opening his mouth to try to explain. That would be weird, right? It’s not like Hanai asks him to, and Tajima isn’t sure if volunteering the information would be welcome, either. The way Hanai’s clenched his fist, set his jaw, and hardened his gaze—it doesn’t look like he wants to hear about it. </p><p>Tajima chews on his lower lip and gives it some thought. “Wanna help me practice batting?” he asks instead. </p><p>“No, I gotta do field drills,” Hanai mumbles, then hurries away.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Seeing Remi casually is more than fine, actually. She’s low-key and effortless, like Tajima is, and she’s cute and fun and has really nice, soft breasts that Tajima really likes. But it gets a little harder to meet up with her after the term ends and there’s fewer reasons to hang out together, both their schedules getting pretty busy that there’s rarely any overlapping time they’re both free.</p><p>And that’s fine, too. They were only in it because it was convenient enough, and any more effort makes it a deeper commitment than it actually is. </p><p>The thing with Remi fizzles out into a natural end, and a few weeks later when a teammate begs Tajima to fill out the last spot in a mixer with girls from the humanities department he finds himself next to someone with bright brown eyes and cute short hair. </p><p>Sumire-chan is nice and sweet, gentle in a way that Tajima knows he can break if he’s not careful, so they only go out a few times before Tajima apologizes, but he doesn’t think he’s going to be good for her after all. </p><p>During spring training they play a practice match with another university, and Tajima ends up trading numbers with their short stop. Tanaka doesn’t mind just hooking up, either, but their school’s kind of a pain to get to so it never gets past, like, just the few times afterward before that, too, eventually dies down. </p><p>There’s a couple more mixers, a few more friends-of-friends who get introduced to him for one reason or another. Sometime around fall he downloads an app and talks to a bunch of people—some of them stay friendly, some of them he meets up with a few times, most of them never get anywhere. But dating around isn’t so bad—Tajima naturally likes people, and he likes getting to know them on some level. Most of the time they’re fun to hang out with or hook up with, and it never really goes beyond that. It isn’t like he’s hung up on anyone—he’s trying not to be, at any rate—but he can’t really control what he feels about Hanai, only what he can do about it (which isn’t much), and he definitely can’t control what Hanai does about anything (which is even less).</p><p>“Out late tonight?” Hanai asks, looking up from the TV as Tajima puts on his coat one evening.</p><p>“Maybe. Mixer with the team—hang on, didn’t Shinji invite you?” </p><p>Hanai shrugs, his attention back to the screen. “Have fun.”</p><p>“You wanna come with?” Tajima asks. Hanai never does. “The guys always ask after you.”</p><p>“I don’t really—”</p><p>“We’re going to the barbecue place you wanted to try out. It’ll be good food, at any rate.” Tajima glances at the TV, where the news is playing. “And it doesn’t look like you have any plans.” </p><p>“I’m not just gonna go because—”</p><p>“C’mon, man, you never do anything,” Tajima says, padding back into the living room and tugging Hanai up. “And we haven’t hung out in a while.”</p><p>“It’s not hanging out if you’re looking for—”</p><p>“I’m not,” Tajima says, and he isn’t lying. “I won’t. We’ll come back when you’re ready, okay? Watanabe’s just been trying to get to know this one girl and we’re helping him out, that’s all. Come with. Please?” </p><p>Hanai lets out a deep sigh, then scratches the back of his head. “Fine,” he relents. “Saves me the trouble of cooking, I guess.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Tajima already kind of knows this from going to more than a couple of mixers, but he’s not actually the kind of guy girls tend to flock to right away. He’s more of a charmer who slowly grows on people, friendly and approachable but nothing that screams premium meat, which is for the best, and so it’s usually just down to whether or not he hits it off with anyone in the group. </p><p>Hanai, though, is a different story.</p><p>He’s classically handsome, which means he catches everyone’s attention right away. He’s also tall and broad-shouldered, and the serious look he defaults to gives an impression of reliability and steadfastness, which isn’t that far from the truth of his personality. And he’s quiet, which means he naturally draws interest from the people around him. </p><p>So Tajima kind of, maybe, sort of saw this coming: a group of pretty girls inundating Hanai with questions ranging from the innocently curious to the dangerously flirty, Hanai with the wide-eyed look of cornered prey, color rising in his cheeks as he stammers out polite responses.</p><p>“You’re scaring my friend here, girls,” Tajima says when it looks like Hanai may actually be crying out for help, slinging his arm around Hanai’s shoulders and pulling him back. “Mind if I grab him for a second? We’re just gonna go for a quick smoke.” </p><p>“I didn’t know you smoked,” Hanai says once they’re outside, leaning back against the wall and exhaling. </p><p>“You looked like you needed a good excuse to get out for a bit.”</p><p>“I thought you said it’d just be food.”</p><p>“It is for me, usually,” Tajima says with a wide, sheepish grin. “Forgot how popular you could be.” </p><p>Hanai frowns. “I’m not—”</p><p>“Handsome? Attractive? Boyfriend material?” Tajima asks, putting his hands in his pockets and leaning back to give Hanai a once-over. “I know you don’t believe me but four girls out of seven in there clearly back me up on this.”</p><p>Hanai huffs. “Don’t be ridiculous.”</p><p>“I’m not.” Tajima sniffs, scratching at his nose. “They’re cute. Those girls.”</p><p>“I didn’t come here for the girls,” is all Hanai mutters before he heads back inside.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Did something happen between the two of you?” Ren asks him. Their team had come over for a practice game for spring break and the four of them had gone out for food afterward to catch up. He watches Hanai disappear into the bathroom, gaze flickering back to Tajima, who scratches his head. </p><p>“I don’t know?”</p><p>“He’s more on edge than usual,” Abe murmurs, swiping a handful of fries from Ren’s tray and popping them in his mouth before taking a sip of his drink. “He was playing stiffly too, but you saw him today.”</p><p>It’s been a while since Tajima’s seen Abe or Ren, but he still does text Ren often. And anything Ren knows, of course Abe would, too. “You know how he gets,” he tells them. “He hates talking about things until they come out one way or another.”</p><p>Abe frowns. “You were pretty good at getting him to talk about it,” he points out. “Haven’t you guys been talking?”</p><p>Tajima shakes his head. “Not… really.” It’s not for lack of trying. Well. He’s been trying, anyway. But Hanai— “I don’t want to back him into a corner.”</p><p>“Ahh, I see.” Ren chews on a fry thoughtfully. “But if you don’t, who will?” </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Yo, are you bending far enough?” Tajima asks a few days later, after practice, smacking Hanai on the back as he’s doing his cool-down stretches. </p><p>Hanai flinches at the contact, turning to look at Tajima balefully. “What.” </p><p>Tajima crouches down next to him, meeting him eye to eye. “Ren and Abe were worried, you know. If you stay that tense you’re going to hurt yourse—”</p><p>“I’m not tense,” Hanai denies, yelping when Tajima pops up to press a strong hand right in the middle of his shoulder, landing square on a particularly impressive knot in his back.</p><p>“And what’s this, then?” he asks, kneading his back to untangle the knots he’s found there. “You’re hunched over way too much for batting practice and your positioning’s way too stiff. If Ren can see it, anyone playing against us can see it, and the coach definitely does, too. You wanna wait until they call you in to have a talk or something?” </p><p>Hanai jerks at that, shaking Tajima away. “I don’t need you to babysit me for this,” he growls, springing to his feet, fists clenched, and storming off. </p><p>“Hey! Where are you going?” Tajima calls out, jogging after him.</p><p>“Go cool down somewhere else!” Hanai hisses. Then he breaks out into a run, which is not at all any kind of cooling down exercise. </p><p>“Are you actually running away?” Tajima asks, blinking as he matches his pace to Hanai’s. “You know we live together, right?”</p><p>“Stop following me then!”</p><p>“Hah? That doesn’t even make sense!” Tajima runs a little bit faster, but Hanai looks over and increases his own speed. “Why are you so mad at me?”</p><p>“I’m not mad at you!” Hanai denies, rounding the corner and out of the baseball field altogether. </p><p>Fuck, their captain’s gonna ream them out if they don’t get back and pick up their things before the managers have to close up. Tajima considers letting Hanai go at this point, but he remembers the last couple of times that he did, and he knows it’s gonna take another who-knows-how-long before they can yell at each other again like this. </p><p>He doesn’t want to wait any more.</p><p>Tajima keeps going. “Well, you’re <em>something</em> at me!Can you just tell me what’s going on so we can fix whatever it is, already?”</p><p>“Nothing! There’s nothing going on!”</p><p>“Will you stop lying!” Tajima gasps, reaching out to grab Hanai by the shoulder and yanking him back to face him. Hanai’s strong, but Tajima’s stubborn—he digs his fingers in harder and holds on even as Hanai tries to jerk away. </p><p>Caught and trapped, Hanai finally slows down. Still won’t look at Tajima directly, but through gritted teeth he repeats, “I’m not lying. There’s nothing going on.”</p><p>Tajima sighs, but his grip on Hanai doesn’t loosen. “Well. You’re sort of right, I guess,” he says. Isn’t the fact that nothing is going on kind of at the root of all this, after all? “But why are you acting like that’s on me?” </p><p>Hanai opens his mouth to say something. Closes it abruptly. His forehead creases and he frowns. His gaze drops.</p><p>“You said I didn’t mean it,” Tajima says, taking a step toward Hanai. “You said,” he says, another step closer, “I didn’t know what I wanted.”</p><p>Hanai takes in a deep breath, his knee bending to take a step back. </p><p>Tajima tugs him forward instead. “Don’t,” he says. “Don’t tell me I don’t know, because if I’ve learned anything the last couple of years it’s that I can’t change what I want. And <em>don’t</em> run away, because I’ve been letting you and this, right here?” Tajima gestures, laughing a little wildly when he realizes— “Shit, that’s the equipment shed.” </p><p>“What?” Hanai turns around, seeing exactly what part of the field they’re just outside the fence of.</p><p>“Right back where we started, huh,” Tajima says, finally letting go of Hanai so he can scrub at his eyes, because what the hell is with this stupid shoujou moment. </p><p>“Are you… okay?” </p><p>“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” He opens his eyes to find Hanai halfway through reaching out, hand hovering in the space between them. The frown on his face hasn’t gone away, but at least, neither has he. Tajima reaches out, linking their hands together, and miraculously enough, Hanai lets him. “I knew, okay?” </p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“But you didn’t.” It’s not a question. </p><p>Hanai’s grip on his hand falters, but Tajima squeezes tighter. “I didn’t.”</p><p>“What about now?” Tajima asks. He should have asked before, too. “Do you know what you want now?” </p><p>Hanai takes another step forward, holding his free hand up to cup against Tajima’s cheek. He tips his head down, his gaze on Tajima’s as he meets him halfway. </p><p>In the spring of their third year in college, before Hanai closes the last sliver of a gap between them, he finally nods and says, “This.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading! Kudos and comments are always appreciated ♥</p><p>If you liked what you've read, you can <a href="https://twitter.com/slumberish/status/1363463196720390147">share the tweet here</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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